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Book Review: "The World Peril of 1910"
Jan. 15th, 2008 08:58 pmI finished The World Peril of 1910 today, on the train home. Previously, I'd stated that this book was written in the 1890s. However, it seems that was a just a short story of a dozen pages that served as the basis of this book, which was written in 1906. The writer, George Griffith, died a few months before it was published.
It was magnificently absurd. It was horribly, horribly jingoistic. It was terribly dated, and yet prescient in some small ways. I can see why George Grifitth both outsold HG Wells in the 1890s, and why he was almost forgotten after WWI. It was NOT very well written, as a whole, but it was wonderful.
The basic premise is this:
An Irishman and a Englishman go out hunting. They spot an American girl in the water, and swim out to rescue her. The Englishman gets to her first. The Irishman, who has fallen in love at first sight, is envious of the Englishman, and designs a submersible airship, which he sells to the Kaiser, who then allies with Holland, Spain, France, Belgium, and Russia, who all form a vast armada and army to invade England, with the support of a fleet of aerial submarines.
Meanwhile, the Englishman has discovered that a comet is going to impact with the Earth and kill everyone, 13 months hence. He has discovered this because the American girl turned out to be the daughter of the richest man in the world, who also happened to have just moved to England with a keen desire to build the world's largest telescope.
Meanwhile, the brother of the evil Irishman is a naval officer, and his captain is also an inventor, who builds a singular submersible torpedo-ram, which is suddenly unveiled and used to single-handedly destroy the French navy while the Irish-designed and German-built submersible airships are bombing Portsmouth and Dover. Yes, a torpedo-ram, a class of ship that crops up a fair bit in British adventure stories in the late 19th century (basically, it's a fast little warship that shoots torpedoes and, P.S., runs into other ships) even though the Royal Navy only built one of the things, and never used it.
Meanwhile, the richest man in the world (the guy who made the telescope for Englishman to use to find the comet) happens to have made a bet, 30 years ago, with a school chum, that the fellow would not be able to build an airship that can fly with the maneuverability of a bird. The fellow just happens to have done so, mere weeks after Britain is invaded, and a fleet of airships equipped with guns designed by the fellow who built the submersible torpedo-ram are built in America at the command of the world's richest man, who simultaneously undertakes to build an enormous comet cannon in Yorkshire. And also, in a scheme reminiscent of that bit in Contact when we learn that they've built a second space-teleport machine in Japan, a second comet cannon in Pittsburgh.
Right, so...
Millions of people die in this book. The Kaiser, the Tsar, the King of Holland, the King of Belgium, and the President of France hang out in Canterbury, cackling as their submersible airships rain death on innocent Britons and their soldiers march toward London. And yet, our heroes go motoring about the countryside to their manor homes and observatories, munching on sandwiches and being manful and cheerfully can do and objectionably British.
By the end of the book, the wicked leaders of Europe recant and realize they've been misled by that insane archfiend, the German Warlord, Kaiser Willy. The Tsar (Nicholas, no less) is a very decent chap, and he goes for a ride in a British airship and talks about astronomy with Our Hero. Even the Kaiser swallows his Aryan pride in the end and accepts an invitation to tea and sandwiches with his uncle, King Edward, and everything ends happily, though London is partially in ruins and "one and a half million" of her young men were killed just the previous week in the final futile attack on London.
And then they find time to fire off the comet cannons, a couple of weeks later.
I will admit that this was a not a capably written book, but it was most fun I've had reading in a long, long time. I leave you with a description of flight in an aerial battleship, written in 1906 by a man who'd never even been in a ballon...
"At the first touch nothing happened as far as Lennard could see or hear. At the second, a soft, whirring sound filled the air, growing swiftly in intensity. At the third, the mist which enveloped Whernside began, as it seemed to him, to flow downwards from the sky in long wreaths of smoke-mingled steam which in a few moments fell away into nothingness. A blaze of sunlight burst out from above — the earth had vanished — and there was nothing visible save the sun and sky overhead, and an apparently illimitable expanse of cloud underneath.
"There's one good thing about airships," said Mr Hingeston, as he took a quarter turn at the wheel, "you can generally get the sort of climate and temperature you want in them." He put his finger on a fourth button and continued: "Now, Mr Lennard, we have so far just pulled her up above the mist. You'll have one of these ships yourself one day, so I may as well tell you that the first signal means 'Stand by'; the second, 'Full power on lifting fans'; the third, 'Stand by after screws'; and the fourth — just this—"
He pushed the button down as he spoke, and Lennard saw the brilliantly white surface of the sunlit mist fall away before and behind them. A few moments later he heard a sort of soft, sighing sound outside the conning-tower. It rose quickly to a scream, and then deepened into a roar. Everything seemed lost save the dome of sky and the sun rising from the eastward. There was nothing else save the silver-grey blur beneath them. As far as he was concerned for the present, the earth had ceased to exist for him five minutes ago."
It was magnificently absurd. It was horribly, horribly jingoistic. It was terribly dated, and yet prescient in some small ways. I can see why George Grifitth both outsold HG Wells in the 1890s, and why he was almost forgotten after WWI. It was NOT very well written, as a whole, but it was wonderful.
The basic premise is this:
An Irishman and a Englishman go out hunting. They spot an American girl in the water, and swim out to rescue her. The Englishman gets to her first. The Irishman, who has fallen in love at first sight, is envious of the Englishman, and designs a submersible airship, which he sells to the Kaiser, who then allies with Holland, Spain, France, Belgium, and Russia, who all form a vast armada and army to invade England, with the support of a fleet of aerial submarines.
Meanwhile, the Englishman has discovered that a comet is going to impact with the Earth and kill everyone, 13 months hence. He has discovered this because the American girl turned out to be the daughter of the richest man in the world, who also happened to have just moved to England with a keen desire to build the world's largest telescope.
Meanwhile, the brother of the evil Irishman is a naval officer, and his captain is also an inventor, who builds a singular submersible torpedo-ram, which is suddenly unveiled and used to single-handedly destroy the French navy while the Irish-designed and German-built submersible airships are bombing Portsmouth and Dover. Yes, a torpedo-ram, a class of ship that crops up a fair bit in British adventure stories in the late 19th century (basically, it's a fast little warship that shoots torpedoes and, P.S., runs into other ships) even though the Royal Navy only built one of the things, and never used it.
Meanwhile, the richest man in the world (the guy who made the telescope for Englishman to use to find the comet) happens to have made a bet, 30 years ago, with a school chum, that the fellow would not be able to build an airship that can fly with the maneuverability of a bird. The fellow just happens to have done so, mere weeks after Britain is invaded, and a fleet of airships equipped with guns designed by the fellow who built the submersible torpedo-ram are built in America at the command of the world's richest man, who simultaneously undertakes to build an enormous comet cannon in Yorkshire. And also, in a scheme reminiscent of that bit in Contact when we learn that they've built a second space-teleport machine in Japan, a second comet cannon in Pittsburgh.
Right, so...
Millions of people die in this book. The Kaiser, the Tsar, the King of Holland, the King of Belgium, and the President of France hang out in Canterbury, cackling as their submersible airships rain death on innocent Britons and their soldiers march toward London. And yet, our heroes go motoring about the countryside to their manor homes and observatories, munching on sandwiches and being manful and cheerfully can do and objectionably British.
By the end of the book, the wicked leaders of Europe recant and realize they've been misled by that insane archfiend, the German Warlord, Kaiser Willy. The Tsar (Nicholas, no less) is a very decent chap, and he goes for a ride in a British airship and talks about astronomy with Our Hero. Even the Kaiser swallows his Aryan pride in the end and accepts an invitation to tea and sandwiches with his uncle, King Edward, and everything ends happily, though London is partially in ruins and "one and a half million" of her young men were killed just the previous week in the final futile attack on London.
And then they find time to fire off the comet cannons, a couple of weeks later.
I will admit that this was a not a capably written book, but it was most fun I've had reading in a long, long time. I leave you with a description of flight in an aerial battleship, written in 1906 by a man who'd never even been in a ballon...
"At the first touch nothing happened as far as Lennard could see or hear. At the second, a soft, whirring sound filled the air, growing swiftly in intensity. At the third, the mist which enveloped Whernside began, as it seemed to him, to flow downwards from the sky in long wreaths of smoke-mingled steam which in a few moments fell away into nothingness. A blaze of sunlight burst out from above — the earth had vanished — and there was nothing visible save the sun and sky overhead, and an apparently illimitable expanse of cloud underneath.
"There's one good thing about airships," said Mr Hingeston, as he took a quarter turn at the wheel, "you can generally get the sort of climate and temperature you want in them." He put his finger on a fourth button and continued: "Now, Mr Lennard, we have so far just pulled her up above the mist. You'll have one of these ships yourself one day, so I may as well tell you that the first signal means 'Stand by'; the second, 'Full power on lifting fans'; the third, 'Stand by after screws'; and the fourth — just this—"
He pushed the button down as he spoke, and Lennard saw the brilliantly white surface of the sunlit mist fall away before and behind them. A few moments later he heard a sort of soft, sighing sound outside the conning-tower. It rose quickly to a scream, and then deepened into a roar. Everything seemed lost save the dome of sky and the sun rising from the eastward. There was nothing else save the silver-grey blur beneath them. As far as he was concerned for the present, the earth had ceased to exist for him five minutes ago."
